Roquan Smith 2022 NFL season props: Bears' All-Pro linebacker demands trade amid contract dispute

As a Chicago Bears fan, it gives me no pleasure to type this: They are going to be utterly terrible this season as first-year general manger Ryan Poles overhauls the roster and cleans up the mess from the previous front office. If there were two building blocks on the team, they were quarterback Justin Fields and two-time second-team All-Pro linebacker Roquan Smith, but Smith today demanded a trade amid a contract dispute. He is the +550 favorite at DraftKings to lead the NFL this season in tackles and assists.

Former Bears general manager Ryan Pace made some horrible draft picks – Mitchell Trubisky, Teven Jenkins to name two – but he got it right when he took Smith eighth overall in the 2018 draft out of Georgia. The 25-year-old has finished with at least 100 combined tackles and assists in all four of his pro seasons and set a career high last year with 163 combined (fifth in the league) while adding three sacks, a pick and a touchdown. He started every game for the Bears the past two seasons.

The issue is that Smith essentially wants to get paid like a pass-rushing linebacker ($20 million per year), and he's not that but a true middle linebacker. That role isn't considered as valuable, so the Bears have taken a hard line on contract offers. Smith, entering the final year of his rookie deal, is at camp to avoid fines but isn't practicing and on the PUP list. He is +6000 at Caesars Sportsbook to win NFL Defensive Player of the Year.

In a statement from Smith that was released on social media in which he demands a trade, he states that "I've been trying to get something done that's fair since April, but their focus has been on trying to take advantage of me."

Here is what cornerback Jaylon Johnson said recently on what the Bears would be missing without Smith: "Our leader. We all know who Roquan is, what he means for our team. ... Somebody has got to step up, somebody has to fill that leadership role, somebody has to call the defense. Somebody has to do it."

Poles already traded arguably the Bears' best defensive player this offseason in Khalil Mack (+2000 for DPOY) to the Chargers and it's widely believed that fellow pass-rusher Robert Quinn (+4000) will be dealt as well. Quinn had a franchise-record 18.5 sacks in 2021. The Bears are +6.5 for Week 1 at home vs. San Francisco and project to be favored in only three or four games this year. 

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